Museum Studies Certificate: Online in as little as three months

The museum studies certificate unites history, theory and practical learning in a curriculum that prepares participants for professional or volunteer careers in administration, collections and specialty disciplines within museums, zoos, aquariums, parks and botanical gardens.

You can complete your Museum Studies certificate in as little as three months. We are now offering all required courses online every term.

Registration for Spring 2015 is now open.

Museum Studies Online Certificate

The Museums Studies Certificate is offered entirely online, with the exception of the elective exhibit course. Online students will visit their local museums and report back to the class, giving a wide-ranging perspective on museums throughout the U.S. Students use our Blackboard learning environment to follow along in the class via lectures and/or discussion boards. In order to access the online materials, you should have these minimum system requirements.

Program Goals

Through lectures, discussions, guest speakers and field trips to area museums, students learn about:

History of museums

How collections and community inform museum missions

Ethical challenges

Building audiences

Maximizing learning opportunities

Fundraising, finance and management

Organizational development

Program Audience

This program is useful for a wide-range of careers inside museums as well as those preparing for a graduate program in museum studies.

Curator

Administrator

Collections Manager

Pre-Graduate School

Certificate Requirements

To earn a certificate of completion in Museum Studies, students must successfully complete three courses. Students typically graduate in one year. Classes can be taken in any order.

The required courses are:

Museum Origins & Issues

Successful Museum Management in Today’s Environment

Learning in Museums

Optional Two-day Exhibit Symposium

The Exhibit: from Concept to Opening and Beyond
As a supplement to the certificate program, or as a stand-alone experience for museum professionals and those who are interested in furthering their knowledge of the exhibit process, this course presents an in-depth study of the components that make a successful museum exhibition, whether permanent or temporary. Topics include: concept, research, conservation, publications, design, lighting, budget, loans, advertising, sponsorship, education and visitor satisfaction, with subject-specialist guest speakers. This course is offered only in-person at our Chicago campus.

Core Courses:

ONLINE: This course explores the diverse origins of the major
types of museums, and contemporary issues and ethical challenges
facing those museums today. How the primary public mission is
established and interpreted and an overview of museum organization
is included. Planning for exhibitions, community inclusion, and
diversity are also addressed. The online section of the course will
expand to encourage students to visit subject-appropriate museum
sites in their own area, reporting back to the class. Students will
also participate in discussion boards on the assigned topics and
research the origins and mission of a museum in their locality.

This interactive course explores the organization, governance
and management of museums, with a focus on real-world problem
solving. We consider the role of the board, the museum president,
staff and volunteers. Topics include strategic planning,
organizational structure and development, fundraising, marketing,
collections management, exhibit development and design, evaluation
and museum finances. Students, instructor and guest museum
lecturers together critically examine current issues in the museum
world, such as technological impacts, funding strategies, relevance
to new audiences, virtual museums and economic impacts.

With guidance from museum professionals, students take on real
projects at real museums. Past projects have ranged from marketing
plans to volunteer recruitment strategies to exhibit development to
retail planning. For this on-line session, students are encouraged
to participate in a live weekly webinar with the instructor, guest
museum experts and fellow students. This session will be Tuesdays,
6-8 p.m. central daylight time. Those who can’t join live will
access the webinar recording. We will offer a few weekend and
evening field trips for those in the Chicago area, which will be
made available via video for all students. The instructor offers
live online “office hours” to answer questions and help students
keep up with the brisk pace of this interactive course and its
practical applications. Get ready to have fun, network with museum
professionals, and either advance your museum career or explore
whether a museum career is right for you.

This course studies current theories and practices of education
and learning in museums and examines the principal activities in
planning and implementing educational experiences for museum
visitors. Included are consideration of the role of museum
educators and the principles of informal learning. Strategies to
assess learning interests for potential audiences and to include
technology in museum learning are presented. All types of
educational opportunities and experiences offered by museums are
examined and evaluated. Online students will analyze the learning
opportunities and experiences offered by a museum of their choice
in their own area, in addition to participating in weekly online
discussion boards.

Elective Courses:

This two-day symposium presents an in-depth study of the
components that make a successful museum exhibit, whether permanent
or temporary. Topics covered will include: concept, research,
conservation, publications, design, lighting, budget, loans,
advertising, sponsorship, education, and visitor satisfaction. The
symposium includes specialist speakers from the fields of Lighting,
Design, and Community Relations. There is also a field-trip for the
group to observe and share the experience of design and exhibit
interpretation at one of Chicago’s tiniest museums.

This course may be taken as a supplement to Northwestern
University's Museum Studies Certificate Program or as a stand-alone
experience for museum professionals and those who are interested in
furthering their knowledge of the exhibit process.